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Carlisle alcoholic waved knife while drunk

AN ALCOHOLIC stumbled around his street waving a knife as he searched for men who “put him in a skip”.

Michael Henry, of Millholme Avenue, Currock, Carlisle, admitted possessing a kitchen knife in a public place and being drunk and disorderly when he appeared at the city magistrates’ court.

District Judge Gerald Chalk heard that the 62-year-old was a self-confessed “drunk”, who has recently become the target of bullies.

Prosecutor Paul Gibson said that on May 20, a resident in Millholme Avenue came out of her house to find Henry in the street.

He asked her ‘where is he?’ and when she told him there was no-one else around, he began banging on the door of a property.

“The neighbour opened the door and saw Mr Henry outside mumbling,” Mr Gibson continued. “He said ‘it was you, you put me in the skip and broke my ribs’.

Henry pulled a knife out of his belt.”

Holding the knife at chest height, Henry continued to mumble that someone had put him in a skip and he would “have them” and would happily “do time” for it.

The man who answered the door told him to go home and Henry was seen going into his own flat.

When the police arrived, they confiscated a knife from the property.

Gail Heard, defending, said Henry had struggled with alcohol since the death of his wife in 1997.

Ms Heard told the judge that about 10 days before this incident, a group of three young men seem to have come across Mr Henry on the street, drunk,” she said. “They pushed him around a bit and one picked him up and dumped him into an empty skip.”

Henry sat in court with his head down and his eyes shut, as the judge heard how he had become “tearful and remorseful” in interview.

Judge Chalk gave him a three-month conditional discharge for the charge of being drunk and disorderly, but declined jurisdiction for sentencing in relation to the knife charge.

He said the severity of the crime meant he felt his powers may not be sufficient.